“For a law-abiding Casper resident with impaired vision and glaucoma, it proved a tough decision: Take expensive legal medicine, with the side effects, or use marijuana and risk imprisonment. ‘It’s a real frustrating thing – do you want to risk your freedom or do you want to lose your vision?’ He said. ‘It’s not a choice you should have to make.’ He’s not the only one to make that choice. After a motorcycle accident in 1997 shattered his pelvis and crushed his left leg from the knee down, Charlie Lake underwent 13 surgeries that left him in chronic pain. Lake said [opiate addiction] caused ‘mental anguish’ and other health problems until he began using marijuana.”
